


Draconis Derekus

by Kedreeva



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Dragon!Derek, Dragonrider!Stiles, Dragons, Gen, M/M, sterek
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-30
Updated: 2013-07-30
Packaged: 2017-12-21 22:32:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/905715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kedreeva/pseuds/Kedreeva
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Commission for <a href="http://ihniandern.tumblr.com">IhniAndern</a> on Tumblr. She asked for Stiles finding a dragon in Beacon Hills and befriending it. Must have dragon riding.</p><p>------</p><p>Wherein Stiles is awoken by a dragon on his roof in the middle of the night and discovers that is not the night's only surprise.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Draconis Derekus

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ihni](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ihni/gifts).



* * *

  


* * *

 

            The tapping seemed so distant he wasn't sure how it roused him from sleep. Grumbling, he flopped out of bed, not bothering to open his eyes as he wrestled with the covers from the floor and then clambered to his feet. He squinted at the digital alarm clock's little red digits and scowled. "Really, Scott?" he grumbled, knowing the wolf would hear him even though the closed window. "You're taking me out for breakfast for waking me up this early."

            He leaned down and peered out into the black of the night but if Scott was sitting on his roof, he didn't have his eyes open. Nothing moved, and Stiles grumbled as he unlatched the locks of the window. "Show up at 2am and you can't even-" He grunted, opening the sticky window all the way. "Can't even be ready to get your ass inside before _holy god_!"

            Scrambling backward, Stiles abandoned the window and the dark, scaled beast perched upon his rooftop. It stared at him with eyes as pitch as its body before it slithered forward, scales rasping on the roof shingles. Stiles knew that his father would never make it to his room in time to save him, even if he could shout past the lump in his throat. The creature curled sickle claws over the window frame and put its wedge-shaped head down upon its paws as it continued to stare at Stiles.

            And stare.

            And stare.

            Thoughts muddled through the haze of adrenaline coursing through him, and Stiles reminded himself to breathe. Whatever it was, it wasn't attacking him. It was just watching him, silently. Stiles could feel himself shaking all over, but he cleared his throat from where he sat sprawled unceremoniously on the ground. It wouldn't occur to him until much later that it had  _knocked_ , knowing that it was too large to fit through the opening.

            "Nice... monster," he managed. The creature snorted and tipped its head, rolling its eyes into the motion. Then it made a noise that was  _most certainly going to wake his father_ and Stiles was on his feet and across the room in an instant. He couldn't have said how his hands ended up clamped above and below the thing's jaw to keep it quiet. "You can't do that!" he hissed, as if it could understand him.

            A low, deep growl rumbled through Stiles' palms and he realized what exactly he was doing. He released the creature as if burned, fear zinging through him at the glare it was giving to him. A smaller, quieter noise emanated from it and if Stiles hadn't known better he'd have called it a chastisement.

            "Okay," Stiles said, trying to get a grip on the situation. "Okay. All right. It's the middle of the night and there's a monster outside my window wanting to say hi." He grabbed a shirt and snatched his phone off the edge of his nightstand, disconnecting it from the charger even as he pressed Scott's speed-dial number. The creature watched him calmly, as if this is exactly what it had expected.

            "I hope your house is on fire," Scott grumbled into the phone, voice full of sleep-gravel.

            "I don't know if this thing can breathe fire, but I'm really hoping not," Stiles told him, instead of a greeting.

            "What?"

            "Yeah. There is a- a-" Stiles gestured to the thing, up and down, staring at it, trying to wrench an appropriate word from his sleep-drugged vocabulary's grasp. "A dragon. There is a  _dragon_ on my roof, Scott. Why is there a dragon on my roof?"

            "You didn't put it there?" Scott asked.

            "No, I- No! Why would I put a dragon on- Look," Stiles cut himself off because, okay, the last supernatural visitor that had visited  _had_  been Stiles' fault. "I don't know where it came from, but it's just... sitting here."

            "Like just sitting there?" Scott echoed.

            "Yes!" Stiles shot back, frustrated. "Just get over here, okay?" He hung up before Scott could respond. The dragon just continued staring at him, blinking slowly with two different sets of eyelids. Stiles swallowed. Better to have backup.

            He pressed the button for Derek's speed dial. It went to voicemail after a moment, which was typical. Stiles wasn't sure what he expected from Derek a-ring-tone-might-get-you-killed Hale. He left a short, scathing message about how not having a ring tone was about to get him killed, and then dialed Isaac to force him to wake Derek. Isaac, good kid that he was, picked up on the first ring.

            "I swear to god the next time you change your ring tone to  _Call Me Maybe_  I'm going to find you and shove my phone-"

            "It is just a lot of fun waking werewolves up at 2am on a new moon night," Stiles commented, interrupting before he could find out what Isaac would do with his phone. It sounded like it would be unpleasant. "You guys are so cheerful."

            "What do you want, Stiles?" Isaac was getting better at growling.

            "There's a dragon on my roof and Scott's coming over to help," Stiles said quickly, before Isaac could hang up on him. "Can you bring Derek?"

            The sigh that crossed the line was long-suffering. "I'll be on my way in a few, but Derek's still out."

            "Out?" Stiles repeated. "Out where? It's a Tuesday."

            "People do things on Tuesdays, Stiles," Isaac told him, yawning partway through.           "I think he went running with Cora. He said he'd call when he was on his way in."

            "Okay... just, you know, hurry. Dragon."

            "I got it," Isaac said, and the line went dead in Stiles' hand.

            Stiles wasn't sure who else he could call about this, so he just sat on the edge of the bed and watched the dragon as it regarded him with what almost looked like approval. Maybe relief. Stiles wasn't an expert on dragon facial expressions; maybe that was just its hungry face and it was trying to figure out how to squeeze in through the window. Surely its wings-

            "Wings..." Stiles murmured and then he was moving across the room. He hadn't turned on the lights, so he was able to see out of the window to the expanse of dragon sprawled over his roof. Sure enough, huge, black wings hung loosely open on either side of the creature, leathery but soft looking, shaped like a bat's wings. They were exactly what Stiles had imagined a dragon's wings would look like.

            "You can fly," he told it.

            To Stiles' surprise, the dragon  _nodded._

            His breath stuck in his throat.

            "You can understand me?" he asked, hesitant.

            The dragon nodded again, looking pleased.

            "Are you going to hurt me?" Stiles asked. It shook its head, though it hesitated. "You were looking for me, earlier. That's why you... why you knocked." Another nod. Stiles took a deep breath. There were a million questions he had, but none of them could be answered with yes or no. "My friends are going to be here soon. We won't hurt you. Will you stay?"

            The dragon nodded, then set its jaw back along its paws and they settled in to wait.

 

* * *

 

            "It's a dragon," Scott said when he opened Stiles' door and caught sight of the beast lounging in the still-open window.

            "It's a nice dragon," Stiles offered helpfully. "Well, mostly. Isaac's coming too."

            "Not Derek?" Scott asked. The dragon made that same god-awful, loud noise it had made earlier.

            "Out with Cora and probably Peter," Stiles responded, glaring at the beast. "We're on our own."

            "Great," Scott bit out in a tone that said it wasn't very great at all. "It's going to be light soon. Someone's going to notice there's a freaking  _dragon_  on your house, Stiles."

            "I know!" Stiles exclaimed. He didn't want to have to explain this to the neighbors. He didn't want to have to explain this to his  _father_  who was going to be up in a couple hours. "But I can't move him, can you?"

            The dragon snorted, and pulled its head from the window. The sound of wings unfolding was unimaginably loud in the quiet of pre-dawn, and Stiles wondered how  _that_ hadn't been what woke him. "It's leaving!" Scott exclaimed, rushing forward. "This is worse!"

            Stiles groaned and followed him. If the dragon wanted to fly away, that was fine with him. Except, he realized a moment after Scott, that if the dragon wanted to fly away it might fly away to  _town_  and  _that_  would be a major problem. "Stop!" he called, without thinking.

            The dragon froze, wings open, perched precariously on the edge of the roof. It swiveled its head around on a long neck to look back at him. Stiles didn't have to hear the words to see  _what?_  written all over the thing's face.

            "What if we lead him to Derek's?" Stiles asked, eyes on the beast despite that he was addressing Scott.

            "Into the city? That's brilliant, Stiles. A+. Then everyone can see him," Scott told him, finally giving in to Stiles' attempt to endear him to the thing with pronouns.

            "No, not- No, the Hale house, not the loft," Stiles corrected. "It's in the middle of nowhere and- oh my god,  _stop_ ," Stiles commanded, because the dragon had started making high pitched, bubbling noises that sounded a lot like excitement or agreement or maybe it was impatience, Stiles really couldn't tell.

            "And you think he's just going to follow you there?" Scott asked, fixing him with a look that said  _you have three seconds to come up with a better plan._

            "No..." Stiles said slowly, eyes tracing over the dragon. "Maybe he will. He's here for a reason, right? Maybe he needs help. Unless you have a way to make him do anything?"

            Scott shook his head and a moment later Stiles was on the roof, walking very, very carefully closer to the dragon. He held out one hand as he walked, to show that he wasn't holding a weapon or perhaps to keep his balance. He was shaking too hard to tell which. The dragon regarded him coolly, drawing one wing in closer and slipping it away from Stiles as he neared, so that Stiles had a clear path over to him. Stiles stopped a few feet short and their eyes met.

            "We aren't going to hurt you," Stiles reassured the creature. "But we can't have you stay here- there are too many people. Will you come with us?"

            "Stiles, he's not..." Scott trailed off, because the dragon was nodding. Then he did something completely unexpected, nudging his face into Stiles' chest like a friendly horse. Stiles yelped and reached both hands out to steady himself on the dragon's snout. It was warm and smooth beneath his palms, the scales almost glassy in texture.

            "Woah..." Stiles breathed, stroking his hands down the scales with wide eyes, unthinking. The dragon's black eyes slid closed at the touch and a low whine wound out of him like it was being pulled. When he opened his eyes they were a pale blue, ringed with hazel at the center. The pupils condensed to tiny dots in the next instant.

            Stiles didn't have time to consider the change before the thing reared back, ripping his snout from Stiles' hands and seizing the teen in both prickly paws. Scott was not fast enough to get out the window before the dragon had crouched and thrown himself bodily into the air. Everything around Stiles turned to the thunderous sound of wings flapping and Stiles' fading scream as the dragon winged away into the night.

 

* * *

 

            "Oh god, oh god, oh god," Stiles repeated, throat raw from screaming. He'd only stopped when he'd come to the conclusion that the dragon obviously wasn't going to drop him. The creature had a destination in mind, if the purposeful tilt and flap of his wings were any indication. His fingers were pressed into the warm scales of the dragon's fingers. It wouldn't do any good if he decided to let Stiles go.

            The dragon tipped his head down, gave Stiles a quick once over before it veered to the left, and Stiles could see it then. The Hale house, exactly where they had been planning to head. He tried to twist a little in the dragon's grasp, to see if Scott had been able to follow. He wondered if Scott had thought to call Isaac. He wondered if he would ever see his father again.

            "I hope you know how to land while carrying someone!" Stiles shouted up, hoping he could be heard over the wind. The dragon tensed and his wings locked into an easy glide. A chill crawled up Stiles' spine. "You don't, do you!"

            The dragon, for lack of a better word, honked at him. It was a deep, throaty noise that made Stiles feel like he'd just been scolded by a velociraptor.

            "Fantastic!" he shouted. Then he took a deep breath and closed his eyes, trying to envision a way out of this. If the dragon could get low enough, perhaps he could drop Stiles in a way that wouldn't hurt him too badly. They would still be going fairly fast; he didn't see a way out without breaking something and for a moment Stiles was greenly envious of the werewolf ability to heal.

            Then a thought occurred to him that wiped out all others.

            "Hey," he said, quieter than he intended but loud enough to be heard because the dragon cocked his head to see Stiles from the corner of his eye. "Your back!" he suggested. "If I can get up to your back, you could land!"

            There was nothing to hold onto, of course, and he'd probably get thrown, but it was better than being dropped or crushed in a bad landing. The dragon seemed to agree, because he shifted Stiles around in his paws. Stiles did his best to stick like velcro as he was draped over one arm. They listed hard to one side and for a dizzying moment Stiles thought he was going to fall.

            But then the dragon's paw was on his back, steadying him, and it was only a few more terrifying moments before Stiles found himself flopped over the dragon's back. Thankfully there were no spikes or spines, only smooth scales. The ride, however, was anything but smooth now that he was between the dragon's shifting wings; it was like trying to ride a lazily bucking bronco through a series of choppy waves.

            It was the best they were going to get, however, so Stiles laid his hands between the shoulders to steady himself, right over a patch of soft skin where scales were missing. It was pink there, instead of black like he had expected, and there was a pattern that Stiles' wind-blurred eyes couldn't quite see. He scrubbed at one eye and squinted down, trying to get a better look at the scar.

            At the  _burn_  scar, he realized.

            At the  _triskele_  burn scar.

            "Oh my god," he breathed, looking up to the dragon's head. "Derek? DEREK?"

            The dragon made a noise that sounded remarkably like relief.

            "Scott is never going to believe this isn't my fault," Stiles told him. "Get us down from here! You have got a  _lot_  of explaining to do!"

            With a snort, Derek flexed his wings, made one more pass of the Hale house, and then angled them down for a landing. Rough was really the start of the spectrum to describe the landing. Just as he had figured, Stiles was jolted from Derek's back and Derek hop-skipped his way into a landing that sent him sprawling. Stiles knew he would have a bruise from where Derek's wing bashed into his face as he tried to right himself.

            Leaves began to settle around them, flecks of dirt and debris hanging suspended in the air. Stiles flopped back onto the ground and tried to breathe as Derek clambered to his feet and inexpertly folded his wings. The sound of slow clapping assaulted both of them, and they turned as one to see Peter standing on the porch of the house.

            "Well that was certainly better than his first attempt," Peter commented.

            "You couldn't have called?" Stiles asked, not bothering to get up. He hurt in places he had hoped never to hurt. Straddling a dragon's back while it flew was wildly uncomfortable; who knew?

            "It was a lot more fun to send him to pick you up," Peter told him idly, staring at Derek's hunched form. "He really got himself into it this time."

            "What happened?" Stiles wondered aloud, already knowing he was going to regret whatever the answer was.

            "He found an egg," came Cora's voice from inside the house.

            "An egg?" Stiles repeated, finally sitting up. Cora came to stand beside Peter, leaning against one of the upright beams. "What, like a dragon egg?"

            "Yes, Stiles. A dragon egg." Cora rolled her eyes, clearly wondering if this conversation was even worth it. "Peter thought there might be a book here in the basement to deal with this."

            "And?"

            "There wasn't," Cora informed him. "But after touching the egg didn't turn us into dragons, too, we played phone-a-friend."

            "Wait, hang on. So numb-nuts here finds a dragon egg and touches it and turns into a dragon, and you-" Stiles motions between the other two werewolves. "You two geniuses decide to touch it just in case having one dragon to hide isn't bad enough?"

            Both Peter and Cora shrugged and Stiles was sure he was going to have to have his blood pressure checked soon. "It only works once. The egg only needs one parent."

            "One-" Stiles cut himself off and looked at Derek. If dragons could blush, he was sure Derek would be a deep, attractive scarlet. Stiles felt glee bubble up inside of him. "So you find a dragon egg, and you touch it, and it turns you into Mama Dragon? Oh my god, this is amazing. You are never going to live this down."

            Derek bared his teeth at Stiles grouchily, but he was too busy looking embarrassed for it to carry much weight.

            "You want to see it?" Cora offered.

 

* * *

 

            Scott and Isaac had turned up to the house shortly after Stiles and Derek landed, ready to fight. Scott hadn't stopped laughing for a long time, and much to Derek's chagrin, Stiles had joined in immediately. The mood was a little infectious until Isaac had pointed out that they had no idea how to turn him  _back_. That had sobered the entire group and made Derek wear the miserable face for the rest of the night.

            After that, Isaac took Scott and Stiles home and they all agreed that Derek had to stay in the woods until this was solved. Stiles spent the rest of the night on the internet, to no avail. No resource - no  _actual_  resource anyway - had anything to say about magical curses on dragon eggs. Scott called Deaton at a more appropriate hour, but he had nothing to offer them either, though he did agree to call around and see.

            In the end, it was Isaac who found the solution.

            Time.

            Time and  _nesting_.

            Stiles and Scott lost it laughing at Derek every time they were over the next week, but the entire group helped him to dig the hole they would need out in front of the Hale house. Peter ordered enough clean, white sand delivered to them that they could fill it, and they built a pretty solid looking berm around the edge of the weird dragon nest. Peter brought the egg from where they had carefully stashed it, and laid it in the center.

            "Does he have to lay on it?" Isaac asked, looking dubiously at Derek's huge bulk. "Won't he crush it? If he crushes it, this is permanent."

            Derek groaned. They had been over and over this; if the egg was damaged, if it broke or died, the spell would stick. The resolution required the egg to hatch. It required  _Derek_  to hatch it.

            "I don't know," Peter said, shrugging.

            They went back to the books from there, but by the time anyone figured out that Derek had to stay with the egg and heat the sands with the liquid fire he could apparently spit, Derek was two steps ahead of them. They returned to the nest to find Derek curled up asleep along the edge, one eye covered only with his inner eyelid as he kept watch on the egg nestled in a small pool of sluggish, molten flame and sand. He stuck out a long, forked tongue at them when they arrived. He looked  _smug_.

            After that it was a waiting game. None of their references or contacts said how long it would take a dragon egg to hatch. Stiles figured out how to make a candler so that they could see through the shell of the egg, but the shell was so thick it was only the faintest of impressions. There was something alive inside, however, and so they left it alone.

            Well, mostly alone.

            Stiles was not about to let a perfectly good opportunity pass him by. He began researching saddles and leather working. Scott found out after a week and joined in and it wasn't long before Isaac was on board as well. They designed dozens of saddles, from sets of straps to actual seats, eventually settling for a mix of the two. It took them nearly a month to finish it, and another week to convince Derek to let them test it out on him. He grumbled and growled the entire time they were attaching it to him, but when they asked if it was uncomfortable he shook his head no.

            None of them were about to risk taking Derek away from the nest to try it in the air, however, so Stiles stored it someplace and kept it oiled for the entire two months it took for the first wiggle and pip through the shell of the egg. Derek alerted them with loud, urgent vocalizations as he pulled the egg to the edge of the nest with the tip of his wing. They all huddled around as the egg wobbled, a tiny, ridged snout widening the pip. It took two hours for the dragonet to zip the top of the egg and spill out onto the ground between Derek's paws.

            It was an ugly little thing, sticky and slick with embryonic fluids. Its eyes were the bright blue of all newborn things, but its skin was a soft green hue, no scales at all, overlaid with a shimmering teal and red iridescence. It leaned to one side on wobbly legs and Derek lifted a paw to steady it. The group collectively held its breath as the dragonet craned its neck back and looked at Derek's face above it. Slowly, very slowly, Derek lowered his head until the tip of his snout touched the tip of the baby's. His long purple tongue snaked out and gave the dragonet a quick lick.

            The dragonet wobbled again and tipped over onto Derek's other paw at the pressure, limbs flailing out. Stiles was the first to regain his voice. "It doesn't have wings," he stated.

            Except, that wasn't  _completely_  true. There were small nubs of flesh where the wings should have gone, tiny, bony structures peeking out. There was no way it would be able to fly soon. Derek didn't seem to notice. He was busy crushing the eggshell with one knuckle, watching with the dragon equivalent of a smile as the dragonet began to consume the bits.

            "What are we going to feed it?" Scott asked, mystified. They'd been feeding Derek wild game, but this was a baby. The chances of it being able to digest the same as an adult were slim and despite that Derek was not a cold blooded lizard, he wasn't exactly a mammal and certainly not a female.

            "Dude it's probably like snakes," Stiles said, and when everyone turned to look at him, he just shrugged. "What? I had a boa once. Even the babies can eat real food."

            "What are we going to name it?" Cora asked.

            Everyone looked back to the dragonet, which was curling up against Derek's chest as it began to fall asleep. Derek looked helplessly back at them in a silent plea.

            "More importantly," Isaac said, voice strained. "Why hasn't Derek turned back?"

 

* * *

 

            Derek spread his wings, enjoying the stretch of the muscles and the feel of the gentle breeze feathering through the forest around him. Closing his eyes, he let the dappled sunlight warm his pitch scales and cocked his head toward the sound of Stiles rummaging around in the back of his Jeep. The scent of fall, of damp and change and color permeated the air, filling Derek's head with visions of a sea of forest the color of sunsets. He had spent the last two months soaring over them, Stiles astride his back in the admittedly well-crafted if uncomfortable saddle he and the others had made.

            A small squeak from between his paws drew his attention down and he let his stiff lips open slightly in a strange approximation of a smile. The lithe green form sprawled across his paws batted at his nose.

 _Flying_.

            Emotions skittered across his consciousness in the wake of the memory-word, sinking delicate claws into Derek's memories of flight and kneading at them. She wanted to taste the sky the way he knew it.

_Yes_

            Less of a word than a feeling, he sent his assent to her. She had grown since hatching, and was now edging up on six feet long if they counted her whippy baby tail and her long, sinuous neck. Often Derek found himself wondering how long it would take her to get to full size; she was growing fast, shedding her skin on the new moons and filling in the new growing room with gusto. Where she had once fit in a ball in Stiles' cupped palms, now she crowded his shoulder when she perched, lithe body just a little bigger than a large housecat. At first her wings had been mere nubs, but they too had grown out as she aged. They were finally, finally, big enough for her to get into the air.      Not just to glide, but to  _fly_.

            "First flight," Isaac had told them one afternoon as they all sat around the sand pit where Derek and the dragonet slept. Everyone looked up and Isaac pointed a finger at the text they had finally obtained. He was reading through it, sometimes aloud to the group, sometimes to himself. His finger traced the lines as he summarized the text. "It says here that the binding spell will drop after the dragonet's first flight. It's a- a turning point. Flight means she's mature."

            "So she hits dragon puberty and that's it?" Stiles had asked, lifting his hand away from the grasping paws of the dragonet. She kept her claws well sheathed around delicate human skin. He looked down at her and the group's collective gaze followed. "Then she's just... done with us?"

            Isaac had shrugged helplessly. "I guess. It says once they can fly, they can hunt and get away from predators. They don't need a guardian anymore. That should break the spell."

            Derek remembered the pain that constricted his chest at the thought of the little ball of spitfire and love they had spent the last couple months raising just leaving them. It was difficult to imagine. It was, perhaps, even more difficult to imagine going back. Returning to a human form, to his shifting ability. Losing his wings and his scales and the easy communication he had with the dragonet. He tried to imagine losing the wash of color and light and love that poured through him every time she communicated with him.

            "You ready, big guy?" Stiles asked from behind them, the saddle thrown over his shoulder, all the various straps in his free hand. He smiled at the dragonet when she peeked around Derek's arm. "You too, Hedera. Time to touch the sky!"

            Warm colors laced with dark streaks, red and gold and jagged black, swirled up in Derek's mind. This he recognized as Stiles' name, the same pattern she always made for him when Stiles arrived. He wasn't sure how he felt about it, but he clambered to his feet anyway, turning broadside so that Stiles could toss the saddle over his shoulders.

            The process took a while, especially with Hedera helping, batting at the straps and skittering around Stiles' shins as he tried to get everything in order. With every strap Stiles cinched, Derek felt like another lump of lead was settling in his gut.

            This was it.

            One more flight, the last one he would ever make.

            Another strap clinked closed as Stiles threaded the loop.

            One more flight, and everything would go back to normal.

            The solid thump of the last of the straps hitting his rump drew his attention as Stiles tossed the ones that looped behind his tail.

            One more flight and he would have to go back to trying to survive in a world that seemed determined to throw misfortunate at him at every turn.

            He closed his eyes, felt the nudge of Hedera's comfort at the edge of his mind, but he closed her out. She didn't need to feel this. She didn't need the crushing weight of his reality bearing down on him. She didn't need to know how afraid Derek was of returning to a life where he had so often failed.

            Because the thing was that he was  _good_  at this. He had learned the currents of the sky like he was made for them, learned to hunt game as death from above, picked up on the mental communication with Hedera like it was his native language. Here, like this, he had only responsibility to the little dragonet staring so curiously at him. Like this he was free to seek the sky, to spread his wings and touch the clouds, to fly away if things got to be too much. He could go anywhere, do anything.

            If he was honest, he was terrified what giving that up would mean.

            Stiles patted his shoulder affectionately, like a horse. "All set."

            Sweeping back one wing, Derek gave Stiles access to the saddle. Hedera watched from a few feet away as Stiles climbed aboard, strapping himself into the device with an ease born of practice. Another memory for Derek to regret losing; Stiles seemed to enjoy the sky every bit as much as Derek. He was glad he couldn't read Stiles' mind like he could Hedera's. He didn't think he could do this if both of them regretted it.

            As soon as Stiles was settled, Derek swiveled his head around to look at Hedera. He formed a burst of golden light, followed by the feel of his wings opening, the pull of his muscles as he crouched and then sprung into the air. He chased this with the feeling of repeated, firm wing beats, the rush of air around him, the weave of his body climbing upward. She soaked all of it in, greedy and excited, and sent back a swirl of affirmation, exasperation tinting the edges of the feeling with pink.

            Derek shot her a cowing look and she slinked a little closer to the ground, submission tweaking at his senses. She would listen. He let his wings slack open and felt Stiles adjust himself for the jolt of take off, thighs tightening on the saddle.

            With Hedera gleefully galloping at his side, Derek bounded a few paces forward to gain momentum before launching himself into the air. There wasn't as much space for taking off in the forest, but as long as they stayed near the house it wasn't too bad. His wings thundered around him but all he could hear was the stream of  _fly fly fly_  coming from the green dragonet jumping into the air behind him.

            And then they were above the tree tops, golden sunlight spilling over their hides, and Derek was nearly consumed by the wash of happiness he felt pouring from his dragonet. He could feel the way the air moved around her, knew that she was flapping evenly, strongly. He would have to fly slower than he normally would so that she could keep up, but he didn't mind. It was a thrill enough to have her in the air with him. It made him wish he could as easily sense what Stiles was feeling.

            After a while of flying in his wake, Hedera made the effort to peel away from him, coasting to the east. Derek watched her for a moment, long enough to feel the little tug of panic that she was alone before he threaded reassurance at her and veered to follow, wings spread wide to cup the current she had found. It felt good, really good. Derek wondered how he would ever stand to be grounded after this.

            They spent hours in this manner, tracing the eddies and currents, coasting over a sea of autumn forest. Derek took them high, as high as he dared, as high as he could continue to support himself and Stiles, and lead her over the city. Gold and green filtered from him, the colors of  _home_ , shot through with the red of warning. This was home, but she must not come here. A cool zing of fear echoed back at him, chased by agreement.

            When Stiles finally laid a warm hand to Derek's neck, it was like he'd flipped a switch. Derek felt the energy drain from him, felt the strain of hours of flight, and an echo of the stiffness in Stiles' joints. It was nowhere as clear or as strong as Hedera's emotions, but it was there and for that Derek was happy. He wished they could have had more time for him to figure out how to access that link.

            With a short press of images, Derek directed Hedera back to his old home. Her wings flurried as she adjusted her course and her excitement coursed through him. A warmth all his own bubbled up inside of him; he had no idea how she could have so much energy, but he was glad for it. He had done this one thing right.

            He cordoned off his dread, and sent a thread of encouragement to her as he adjusted his course as well, following her back.

            When he dove for the ground he felt Stiles tense on his back. He would have smiled if he could, but instead he folded his wings and streaked downward. At just the right height he pulled up, wings flaring, flapping hard, his hind legs jerking forward with momentum and he stretched his talons out to catch the ground. He thumped down with far more grace than his first few landings. Hedera bounced to a stop beside him like she'd been flying and landing all her life.

            The moment she landed, however, she froze.

            Derek felt Stiles shift to look at her. "Hedera?" Stiles called, trying to draw her attention. She was staring into the middle ground of space and Derek felt the tug of something foreign radiating from her. She was closed off to him, focused inward. "Hey, kiddo," Stiles tried again, already undoing the straps that held him in place so that he could go to her.

            Stiles hadn't made it through two of the straps before Hedera startled and shied away from both of them. She stared at them with wide eyes, as though she had never seen either of them in her life and, before it could even register with either of them, she had launched herself back into the air. Derek whipped around to follow, but he was sluggish and fatigued. There was no way he could catch her, even if he managed to get into the air, and with Stiles halfway out of the saddle it would be too much of a risk to give chase.

            So he watched, helplessly, as she burst above the trees and disappeared from sight.

            The link between them slammed shut and darkness flooded in to fill the void.

 

* * *

 

            Stiles watched as she winged away, felt the vague echo of loss he knew didn't belong to him. That had been happening for a while now, a couple weeks, the intrusion of Derek's emotions. They were weird, foreign and colorful and Stiles actually thought he could get used to it. This, he didn't like, though. This writhing despair, clawing at him, threatening to wash his thoughts away and replace them with darkness if he let them in.

            "Derek, stop," Stiles huffed, reaching for the strap around his ankle. A high, thin keen escaped the dragon beneath him. Stiles couldn't help feeling sorry for him. This was going to be the worst on Derek. "She'll be fine."

            He knew that wasn't the point, of course. It didn't matter that she would be fine. She wouldn't be  _here_. He knew the feeling. He also knew there was nothing either of them could do about it right now.

            So he did what he could. He removed the saddle and he shot a text to Scott to tell him Hedera was gone. Scott would text Isaac, maybe tell the others. Stiles knew that if he wanted to go home, Peter would drive out in the morning to collect Derek- the binding spell wouldn't wear off until the day turned over. But, looking at Derek where he slumped dejectedly at the edge of the sand put, Stiles knew he wasn't leaving. There wasn't anywhere to sleep in the house, but he'd slept in the Jeep before.

            "Hey, Derek?" When Derek's head swiveled around to look at him, Stiles forced himself to wave his phone and smile. "I let Scott know. But um, if it's okay, I'll stay here. Give you a ride in the morning, when you're all de-dragonified."

            Derek just turned away from him and put his jaw on his paws.

            For a moment Stiles was at a loss. There was a gaping hole in his heart, too, and he could only imagine how much worse it had to be for Derek. Maybe they hadn't been able to talk to Derek in months, but Stiles got the feeling that this was something that was changing him in more than form. Derek was... succeeding. He was  _thriving_  on this interaction, at the creation of life rather than the destruction that had been his world since he was a teenager.

            Instead of climbing into the car, Stiles tossed his phone into the passenger seat and walked slowly over to Derek's side. Derek opened hazy blue eyes but didn't move. He just laid there, allowed Stiles to practically collapse beside him and lean back against his shoulder.

            "You did it right, you know," Stiles told him quietly. His own chest was tight. "You raised a kid and you did it right. You let her go. She's going to be great out there. You know that, right?"

            Derek huffed and closed his eyes. Stiles felt the tiniest glimmer of warmth from him and he smiled, leaning his head back against Derek's warm flank. He wondered if the werewolves felt this smug when they could hear the lie in a human's heartbeat. It certainly was satisfying.

            "I'm proud of you," Stiles offered, instead of calling him on it. They fell into a companionable silence, and after a while, Stiles dozed off.

 

* * *

 

            Stiles squeezed his eyes shut tighter, trying to ignore the rushing sound outside of the Jeep. He'd woken sometime in the middle of the night to the feeling of being carried and while he was grateful that Derek had thought to carry him out of the cold and away from the annoying, biting insects, he knew by the pink-grey tone of the sky it was only just past dawn. It was a Saturday and even if Derek was excited (weirdly excited, with shouting and running around outside the car) to be human or werewolf or whatever again, he could at least have let Stiles sleep in a little longer.

            And then the Jeep was swaying as something crashed into it and Stiles startled away, a sharp, loud reprimand on his lips for Derek to  _please stop acting like a goddam puppy for five-_

            Except Derek was standing a dozen yards away at the edge of the sand pit, watching the Jeep with a smile that honest-to-god split his face, jaw open and everything. It was awkward on his human face but Stiles recognized it from Derek's attempts to smile as a dragon. Stiles' brain stuttered to a halt, unable to decide what to process first; Derek smiling or Derek standing too far away to have rocked Stiles' car.

            An impish little face peeked over his windshield and took the decision from him. Scarlet and teal chased one another in the iridescence of her hide as she slid down onto his hood, wings scrabbling to help keep her from falling off. She pressed both her paws to the glass, and then her snout, and there was a flutter of red and gold and black at the edges of Stiles' mind. He hadn't figured out if that was his name or a greeting, but he was fond of it either way.

            "Hedera!" Stiles exclaimed, disentangling himself from the vehicle as he practically fell out of the door. She was a flurry of wings and squealing as she all but leaped into his arms, scrabbling up onto his shoulder. It was an exceptionally tight fit for her to balance there, but Stiles couldn't have cared less; he was overjoyed to see her again.

            "She came back," Derek called as he strode toward them. Stiles didn't know when Derek had learned to smile, but it looked so good on him Stiles wished he would never stop.

            Stiles felt himself echoing Derek's smile as he scratched under Hedera's chin, a solid thrum of pleasure starting up in her chest. The moment Derek was close enough she extracted herself from Stiles' grasp and launched herself at Derek. Black and blue and red flashed in distant echo in Stiles' mind. That, he knew, was Derek's color set. She curled herself around his shoulders and began licking his cheek with a long red tongue.

            "I thought she was gone," Derek breathed in wonder, stroking a finger down her snout. "I can't believe she came back."

            Stiles chuckled and when Derek looked at him, brows raised in question, he shrugged. "Guess you make a pretty good dad," he explained.

            A strange look washed over Derek's face. Though Stiles couldn't quite place his thumb on what it was, he suspected it was the warm pride of a person watching his life take a turn for the better. It looked good on him.

 

* * *

 

            Derek sat leaning against the small wall that framed the steps to the front porch of his old home, enjoying the cool breeze of the night. The sun had set hours ago and the night was as clear as the day before had been; above, the sky was a tapestry of glittering stars. The moon wasn't full enough to claw at his insides, but it was full enough to be a gentle tug, reminding him that he was  _back_. He was werewolf again.

            Moonlight shimmered on Hedera's emerald scales where she slept in the pool of sand a few yards away from the house. Derek watched her with vision tipped slightly sideways with how he rested his head against the wall. The feeling of having her here was warm and comforting.

            "She's really beautiful, you know," Stiles commented. He was pressed warm against Derek's legs, just a step down from where Derek sat, his purple hoodie wrapped tight around him against the chill.

            "I know," Derek agreed. His heart twisted up to choke him. She had returned, but it just wasn't the  _same_  as it had been when he was a dragon also. He couldn't feel her every emotion, her every thought, brushing around inside his head like a light show. The feeling of loss was acute; so much so that he blurted out how much he missed it before he could consider the repercussions.

           But Stiles didn't tell him it was wrong. He made a noise of sympathy, ran a warm hand down Derek's shin in comfort. Derek didn't have to see him to hear the smile in his voice. "Do we need to find you another egg to turn you back?" he asked.

            It was teasing, but Derek could tell that on some level Stiles meant it. He could hear the slight tremor in Stiles' voice that spoke of fear that turning back was exactly what Derek wanted. He could hear the steady beat of Stiles' heart jump, but it wasn't the jump of a lie; it was the jump of concern. So while the words were teasing, Derek also knew that if he said yes, Stiles would put his energy toward locating another egg.

            So he rolled his eyes instead, because Stiles couldn't hear his heartbeat. "No," he replied. "It's better this way."

            Stiles hummed agreement, eyes still trained on the sleeping dragonet. It was quiet for a while, and Derek heard Stiles' heartbeat rise the instant before he spoke. "I'm glad you're back."

            It was barely a breath, barely an admission, but Derek heard it so loud and clear Stiles may as well have shouted it. When Stiles shifted around and held out a hand, Derek hesitated only a moment before threading his fingers into Stiles' and squeezed just a little.

            As Stiles rested his head against Derek's arm and relaxed, Derek found himself thinking that at least there was one good reason not to be a dragon anymore.

* * *

  



End file.
